Judy: The unfounded belief that
the 2020 presidential election
was rigged has become an
important force in American
politics, especially in this
year's Republican primary.
John yang has more on what the
nonprofit news organization pro
publica and frontline found out
about how the myth of a stolen
election grew and spread.
>> The joint investigation
uncovered a trove of internal
emails and documentation.
Lawyers and political operators
and other trump supporters
spread a number of theories,
even though they knew some of
them had been discredited and
even used them as a basis for
lawsuits.
Pro publica reported that Doug
Clark worked on the story.
You write this is a case of
little untruths adding up to the
big lie and moving from the
fringes to the mainstream of the
Republican party.
How did this happen?
>> It did not just magically
appear.
There had to be people who
thought of the ideas that they
would spread to Republican
legislatures, to the
conservative public itself into
the white house.
And what we found in our
reporting is that there was a
small group of people who were
very engaged with searching for
what they called evidence for
the big lie, but during our
reporting's, we found that
actually there was a pattern of
them being told this evidence
was not valid, it was not good.
Yet they kept on going,
promoting this stuff anyway.
And that is had a huge impact on
polls show that two thirds of
Republicans believe in the big
lie.
And even more, millions believe
ideas like that voting machines
were hacked by foreign
governments.
>> I think a lot of people are
familiar with that.
The allegation that voting
machines in Georgia and Michigan
were switching votes, were
changing votes.
How did that grow and spread
despite the evidence that
suggested it just wasn't true?
>> One of the key things this
small group of people worked on
was a technical report called
the -- ant farm report asserting
in very tech savvy language that
evidence had been found in
voring machines-- voting
machines an- in
Michigan that the election had
been stolen.
It was widely spread including
by president trump.
We found the original version of
this report didn't actually
makes such strong assertions.
One of the authors told us that
it was, they could not find
conclusive evidence of election
fraud.
They found things that were
suspicious but then it was given
to someone else and that person
edited it.
>> So many other people pushing
these theories were told by
their own investigators, people
they hired, there was nothing to
these theories.
The companion documentary
from frontline contains a
question to the former CEO of
overstock.com.
>> Out of all the people I met,
you seem to be the person most
personally responsible for
motivating this election fraud
movement and some would say for
spreading disinformation.
And do you think that is an
accurate way, you are the
kingpin?
>> Or that I'm the one who's
waking up Americans to this deep
problem in our election
apparatus.
>> Let me ask you, if you agree
to this simple binary.
If you're right, you are saving
the country.
If you are wrong, you are
destroying it.
>> I can live with that.
>> How typical was that
response?
>> These people very much
defended their actions.
They really believed some of the
things they were saying, but our
reporting found they were warned
multiple times, including
Patrick burn, about some of the
evidence they were championing.
One of the things that we
published in the article is in
email in which burn describes a
woman who, he would champion as
a reliable source on election
fraud as being un trustworthy
and un reliable and his own
investigators told him this and
-- he told us he had a change
of heart.
He became her friend and he
found he believed her ideas but
time and time again we found
that these people were warned
about pieces of evidence or
about the quality of their
witnesses and yet they still
promoted it.
>> Yet, two thirds of
Republicans doubt the legitimacy
of the election.
Now we are in the midst of
primary season for midterms.
And whether or not the election
was legitimate has become a
litmus test for Republican
candidates.
To get, to win support in
Republican primaries.
What does this say about where
we are right now?
I was struck in the story when
you ask Michael Flynn's brother
who was acting as a spokesman to
respond to some of these
allegations or some of the
denials and he said no one we
care about is going to read this
story.
What does this say about where
we are?
>> It is extremely concerning
that this would become such a
basis for a political platform.
The idea the election had been
stolen.
To have good political outcomes,
to have a legitimate and healthy
political discourse we need to
have agreement on what actually
happened and we need to base
that on facts.
If so many people are pushing
the idea that this election
wasn't real and wasn't
legitimate, that is unhealthy
for the American politics.
>> Doug Clark.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
Judy: And thank you, John.
To follow more of this
collaborative programming from
frontline and pro publica you
can watch the film "Plot to
overturn the election " at